How Los Angeles Dodgers made it to third World Series in six years
USA TODAY Sports’ Gabe Lacques breaks down how the Dodgers dominated the Brewers en route to another World Series appearance.
Sports Pulse
The NFL’s competitive balance, driven by a salary cap and draft, allows different teams to make the playoffs each year.In contrast, Major League Baseball often sees the highest-spending teams reach the World Series.Unlike in the NFL, some MLB teams have payrolls so low they cannot realistically compete with high-spending teams like the Dodgers.
The NFL is a juggernaut in no small part because it’s competitive, week to week and season to season.
For 35 years now, at least four teams have qualified for the playoffs after not making them the previous season. This year, nine teams that missed the playoffs last season are .500 or better, while somebody new is either leading or tied for the lead in six of the eight divisions.
Meanwhile, 30 games have had a game-winning score in the final two minutes or OT, a record through Week 7. And the week isn’t over yet!
What all this means is that, New York Jets fans aside, you can begin each season with legitimate hope. On paper, at least, the playing field is level, with the draft, the schedule, free agency and salary cap all working to push the league toward parity.
Sure, some teams have an edge because they’ve done a better job of finding quarterbacks and head coaches. But fans can take comfort knowing no team can simply buy its way to the Lombardi Trophy.
Which is pretty much the exact opposite of Major League Baseball.
For the fifth time in the last 10 seasons, the team with the highest payroll has reached the World Series. Expand it to the teams with the five highest payrolls, according to Spotrac.com, and there’s been at least one in the Fall Classic in nine of the last 10 years. In 2024 and 2018, it was both teams.
Also, for the seventh time in these last 10 seasons, at least one World Series team will pay the luxury tax for excessive payroll. And for the defending champion Los Angeles Dodgers, whose roster boasts two Cy Young winners and four MVPs, it’s going to be a doozy.
MLB needs both a salary cap and floor to spur competition
The Dodgers are expected to pay a luxury tax of almost $169 million, a sum that is higher than the payrolls of 16 of MLB’s 30 teams. That’s also $20 million-plus more than the combined payrolls of the two lowest-spending teams, the Athletics and the Miami Marlins.
This after the Dodgers paid more than $103 million in luxury tax last season, when L.A. beat the New York Yankees in a World Series that might as well have been dubbed the “Haves vs. Haves.” The Yankees had the game’s highest payroll last season, and their luxury tax bill of $62.5 million was just $1 million less than the Athletics’ entire payroll.
That’s not sport. That’s a social experiment gone wrong.
Baseball is hurtling toward a work stoppage next season, something it can ill afford when youth participation numbers are sagging and television ratings are finally on the rise. A salary structure like the NFL’s, where there is both a hard cap and a floor, is the only way forward.
The owners don’t want a floor because it will force cheapskates like the Athletics’ John Fisher, the Miami Marlins’ Bruce Sherman and the Chicago White Sox’s Jerry Reinsdorf to open their wallets. The players don’t want a cap because it will limit their earning power. That’s short-sighted on both their parts.
Baseball was supplanted by the NFL as the national pastime long ago because casual and diehard fans alike realized the fix was in before the first pitch of the season was even thrown. Why should anyone care about the Baltimore Orioles or the Pittsburgh Pirates or the A’s when they don’t have (or won’t spend) the money to compete? Why should fans of the Milwaukee Brewers or Cincinnati Reds get their hopes up when their reward is the buzzsaw that is the Dodgers in the playoffs?
It’s not sustainable, not over the long term. By restoring some sanity to its salary structure, baseball can ensure both its success and relevancy.
Again, look at the NFL.
The Green Bay Packers are an even smaller-market team than the Brewers. But because they can’t be outspent by teams in larger cities, and because the NFL requires them to spend a minimum of 90% of the salary cap, they’re on equal footing with every other team in the league. Their chances for success, of getting into the postseason and making a deep run, are every bit as good as teams from, say, Chicago and New York.
Probably better, because the Packers don’t have a habit of screwing up the quarterback position.
Success in the NFL is based on merit, not money. Titles are determined by talent, hard work and brains, not who’s got the bigger bank account. Fans stay invested beyond their own teams because nothing is guaranteed.
Going into Monday Night Football, the Indianapolis Colts had the NFL’s best record at 6-1 while the Baltimore Ravens are 1-5. The Denver Broncos, not the Kansas City Chiefs, lead the AFC West. At 5-2, the New England Patriots already have more wins than they did in each of the last two seasons.
Competitive balance like that is not only fun, it’s the NFL’s superpower. Baseball should really try it.
Follow USA TODAY Sports columnist Nancy Armour on social media @nrarmour.